Jacinderella and the glass ceiling

Once upon a time in a dysfunctional kingdom, there lived a humble public servant girl named Jacinderella.

She worked in a Beehive with her ugly step-sisters, Greenella and Winstonella. And when we say ugly, we’re talking butt ugly.

And mean.

The only meaner thing in the village was the attack dog, Crushella Collins.

Jacinderella wasn’t expecting the role of unlikely fairy tale heroine; she gained it by default, after a glitch in the process meant the most favoured for the title, voted for by more people in the kingdom, unexpectedly fell into the moat.

Now don’t be thinking this story has a happy ending like the Disney movie. For starters, Disney had the lead role played by Hilary Duff. In our version, the lead is up the duff. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Let’s celebrate woman-power breaking down the male-dominated status quo and the smashing of gender stereotypes. Just clean up the mess after you. Those fragments of stereotype can hurt more than Lego.

Fundamental differences

It wasn’t a happy family. They had some fundamental differences of opinion.

Greenella was concerned about the rising moat level, wanted to close the mines and get rid of the warships; while Winstonella supported extractive industries, campaigned to boost naval firepower and opposed water taxation.

Jacinderella somehow had to keep the peace despite all the polarised attitudes in the household.

Throwing another party seemed like a good distraction from reality.

Party, party, party

There was great excitement in the village, because there was going to be a ball.

Well, not so much as a ball, but a party.

A working party! There had been many working parties and it seemed endless more to come. Jacinderella was obsessed.

So she organised another one.

Because she didn’t have much to wear, and it suits the purpose of this story, it is necessary to have a fairy godmother turn up about now to lavish some stuff upon her. Jacinderella was wise in the ways of fairy godmothers because she had been pretending to be one for a good few months now, handing out other people’s hard-earned spoils in many directions, including across the vast oceans to Pacific villages.

This enraged many of the locals who’d done the work to earn a meagre living, and believed there were more pressing needs in the neighbourhoods from where the cash was raised that should be sorted first. But that doesn’t help make a good fairy tale story so we’ll conveniently skip over it; much like the Coalition has.

Glass slippers

The fairy godmother waved her magical tax-funded wand and hey presto, Jacinderella had a beautiful gown with room for expansion and glass skippers for dancing on the legendary glass ceiling.

The fairy godmother turned a pumpkin into the swankiest limo in the kingdom. Not just the standard model, but the one with daytime LED running lights, park assist and ran purely on electrical power. (Despite Greenella’s desire to banish lithium mining.)

“But you must be back my midnight, my dear, or your limo will turn into Gerry Brownlee.”

So off to the party went Jacinderella!

(To be continued…)

Sad passing

It is sad to note the passing of athlete Dick Quax this week. Particularly for my family, who claim to have had a special influence in his success many decades ago. My dear late Auntie Carol had a terrier in the 60s. Tiki, a brother from the same litter as our family mutt, was a speedy foxy-dachshund cross.

He had good straight-line speed and a low centre of gravity for excellent cornering.

Quax regularly ran past Tiki’s gate in Melville and Tiki was always ready and in pursuit; at least till the end of his yard fence. Thanks Tiki for your part, however small, in giving our famous athlete the edge. Mr Quax may not have reached his legendary peak levels of achievement had it not been for the terrier on the derrière.

Below: Members of the elite athlete motivational training squad from the 1960s.

Tax ideas

There’s mounting outrage over the apparent broken promise by the new gummint, that no new taxes would be introduced.

Perhaps they’ve taken some inspiration from King William III who came up with some creative ways to fleece the masses. In 1696 in England, he introduced the infamous Window Tax, taxing houses based on the number of windows. Houses with more than ten had to pay ten shillings. Many houses bricked up their windows to reduce the number which caused health problems. After 156 years, it was repealed in 1851 after campaigners branded it a “tax on health” and “tax on light and air”.